The rides and attractions at Chicago’s Navy Pier glisten in the afternoon sun. An unassuming middle-aged man turns from a ticket booth to pass a handful of tickets to a group of eager kids. The man reaches out and kisses one of the boys with a fatherly smile, watching the kids run off. When he turns back, he freezes at the sight of Kellerman and Hale. Kellerman addresses the man as Diamond, whose face grows serious. He and the agents have a history. Diamond makes it clear that whatever the agents want, he wants no part of it. He’s been out of the life for years. Kellerman smirks as he takes a bite of ice cream. " I know. Problem is, Diamond, no one’s gonna believe that after I take the heroin I have in my pocket and put it in the glove box of your reasonably priced minivan parked over there. I will cuff you and drag you right out of here, in front of everyone. " Diamond relents, resentfully demanding to know what they need.
That night, alone in her apartment, Veronica reviews paperwork from Lincoln’s case. In the background, the President of the United States delivers a televised speech, discussing alternative fuels. " What America needs is an environmentally friendly, logistically feasible, and economically responsible alternative fuel source." Her phone rings, but she lets the answering machine get it. Wendy, her assistant, begins to leave a message that Nick Savrinn has been calling the office obsessively. Veronica picks up, instructing Wendy to tell him that she’s not there, should he come by the office.
Sucre perches on the top bunk acting as lookout over the cell block, while Michael grinds the other end of the bleacher bolt against the steel bunk frame. He holds the piece up to examine it; it’s a very crude drill bit. Michael then performs his routine of removing the toilet from the wall and makes his way into the catwalks behind the cells.
Deep in the prison bowels, Michael comes to a dead end. He is dwarfed by a massive cement wall, but seems unsurprised by its presence. He sets to work, positioning himself in the corner of the room and taking four steps forward along the barrier wall. He turns ninety degrees, and then steps forward three more paces. He removes the drill bit from his pocket and marks the floor. Michael slides over to a yellow scaffolding beam while he lifts up his left sleeve. He uses a tattoo marking on his upper arm to measure a point on the scaffolding, then he uses the bit to mark the point. Finally, he finds a tripod used to hold work lamps and places it above the mark on the floor.
C.O. Patterson calls out, "Bed check!" to the cell block. Sucre jumps off the top bunk and taps a small mirror against the toilet to signal Michael to return immediately. Sucre hurriedly stuffs pillows under Michael’s blanket in an attempt to give the appearance that he’s there.
Veronica heads out of her apartment and she’s startled when Nick walks up behind her. Nick wants to know why she’s avoiding him. Veronica makes it clear that she doesn’t want Nick’s help with Lincoln’s case anymore. She firmly tells him to leave her alone, but Nick persists. He is insulted by her suspicions that he stole the surveillance tape. She storms out the front door and Nick follows. She enlists the help of building handyman Lucasz, who walks her back inside after telling Nick to beat it.
C.O. Patterson conducts his rounds. He shines his flashlight into Sucre and Michael’s cell, his eye on Michael’s bunk. "Show some skin, Scofield," he orders. There’s no movement from the bottom bunk. Patterson raps his flashlight on the bars and when there’s still no movement from Michael’s bunk, he goes for his keys to open the door. Finally, Michael pushes the covers back, squinting into the flashlight beam. "Tryin’ to sleep, boss." Patterson continues down the row.
As soon as Patterson is gone, Michael whispers to Sucre, "I can’t get through the wall, Sucre. I know how to do it. I just don’t have the time to do it." Michael explains that he based the plan on a schedule, but now he’s behind. Since he constantly needs to be back in his bunk for count, he can’t catch up. If Michael’s not through the wall by the end the next day, the plan will be in serious jeopardy. Sucre tells him that the only time when count is not performed is during a lockdown. If they can rile up the inmates enough to cause a lockdown, Michael will have all the time they need. But how to do it? It has been unseasonably warm this spring and if Michael can disable the air conditioning unit, that might be enough to aggravate the prisoners.
The next day in the yard, an inmate huddles close to the phone. The only part of his body that’s visible is his wrist, which sports a green string bracelet. He’s speaking with Diamond who instructs him on what he wants done. "For you Diamond, anything," the inmate says as he looks across the yard and sees guards escorting Lincoln across the yard. "Lincoln Burrows is as good as dead."
Across the yard, Sara shouts to Michael from the other side of the fence. "Hottest April on record." Michael approaches the fence and Sara asks why he never mentioned that Lincoln was his brother. Sara suspects that it’s because her father is the governor of Illinois. Everyone knows that he has the power to grant clemency to any prisoner on death row, yet he never does. Michael reveals that his father was an abusive drunk who left his family, so he is not in the habit of judging anyone by their father’s actions or inactions. Sara offers to schedule Lincoln’s weekly check-ups to end before Michael comes in for his insulin. That way he could see his brother, even if it was just in passing. Touched, Michael thanks her.
Michael walks away from the fence and sits down next to an inmate, who looks around to ensure that they’re alone before saying, "Greetings from the kitchen, Fish." The inmate passes an egg beater to Michael, who quickly conceals it in his pant leg.
Now recovered from the beating he took from Abruzzi’s gang, T-Bag is escorted back to gen pop by C.O. Geary. A few inmates, including Trokey, applaud his return. Trokey and the boys giggle perversely as Trokey announces that they got him a get well present. T-Bag walks into his cell to find a nervous young kid, Seth, waiting there. T-Bag beams, "It’s just the right size." Seth is new in Fox River, but knows enough to fear T-Bag. He keeps his eyes on the floor as T-Bag approaches him. "You probably heard stories about me. They’re not all true. What do you say we go for a walk?" T-Bag turns out his left pocket, inviting Seth to take it.
Deep in the catwalks, Michael scales a set of pipes and moves upward until he reaches the air conditioning system. Using a small piece of metal he grabbed in the catwalks, he shorts out the fans.
Outside the attorney-client visitation room, C.O. Bob finishes searching Veronica’s bag and tells her that her co-council is already with Lincoln. Veronica looks confused, then races in to discover Nick alone with Lincoln. She’s furious that Nick would show up there and instructs Lincoln not to talk to him. But Lincoln asks her to hear Nick out. Veronica casts a suspicious glance. Nick tells her, "I’ve been going over the incident report from the night of murder and somebody made an anonymous phone call to the local cops claiming to see Lincoln running away from the garage with bloody pants." Veronica knows this already. That call was what prompted the police to storm Lincoln’s apartment, where they found him with the bloody pants, the pants they believe were planted. She’s not willing to hear more from Nick. The call was from an anonymous source. They can’t cross-examine a witness if you don’t know who it is. Nick stops her. They might not know who the caller was, but with the help of one of his connections, they have discovered where the caller was. Whoever made that phone call could not have seen Lincoln running away from the garage that night. Veronica asks how Nick knows. Lincoln smiles slightly as Nick replies, "Because the phone call came from Washington, D.C."
With the A.C. unit now disabled, the temperature in Fox River has the inmates restless and irritable. Michael sits and quietly traces a piece of his tattoo, the face of a devil, onto a piece of paper taped to his arm. Sucre looks around and sees Seth in T-Bag’s cell, cupping pretzel nuggets in his hand. T-Bag has made him into his personal snack tray. He’s also given Seth a new name. When Seth complains about the heat, T-Bag replies, "I say you could talk, Cherry? You’ll know when I want you to open your mouth." T-Bag stands up and shouts to C.O. Geary about the heat, but Geary is unsympathetic to T-Bag’s concerns.
The doors open for count and all the inmates walk out. T-Bag takes a step forward as Geary walks by and asks him, "Why don’t you transfer us somewhere cooler? Like Africa?" Laughter and rumblings from the other inmates echo T-Bag’s sentiments about the heat. Geary orders T-Bag back on the line, but in this heat, no one is interested in following orders. Another C.O., Mack, senses trouble brewing and radios Bellick.
Bellick, in sick bay, accuses Mack of being soft on the cons and tells Mack that if he can’t deal with the problem himself, "Don’t bother cashing your paycheck this week." Sara walks down the hall, but Bellick stops her, wondering what she’s doing outside of the infirmary. She tells him that she’s responding to a report that an inmate has heat exhaustion. Bellick thinks the inmate is just being difficult and he encourages her to stay in her wing where it’s safer for her. Sara stands up to Bellick, offering a subtly veiled threat to his job security should he ever deprive an inmate medical care. Bellick backs off and lets Sara get to work.
The inmates are getting more fired up as T-Bag continues to verbally abuse the guards. Finally, Geary has had enough and throws his cup of water in T-Bag’s face. Geary orders a lockdown, but several of the inmates refuse to return to their cells.
Having gotten the lockdown they wished for, Sucre and Michael move back into their cell. Michael tells Sucre to hang a sheet on the bars; they’re both going behind the walls.
Though most of the inmates comply with the lockdown, some stay out of their cells. The guards back out of the cell block and lock the gate behind them. T-Bag leads a pack of cons to the caged guard booth, out for blood after Geary disrespected him with the water. Bellick arrives, demanding to know what’s going on. T-Bag taunts Bellick as his posse claws at the guard cage. "What do you call a piece of white trash who couldn’t pass the cop’s exam and now makes less than a mailman? A C.O." Bellick fires back, "You know Teddy, you really let me down and that’s hard to do. Because I don’t expect much from the inbred child of a retard. That’s right. I read the psych records. " Bellick has hit a nerve. T-Bag explodes and the inmates go crazy behind him. Mack asks what they should do. Bellick says, "It’s hotter than hell. They’ll wear themselves out eventually."
Back in the attorney-client visitation room, Lincoln is livid that evidence of a fake phone call isn’t enough for a stay of execution. Nick and Veronica explain that the evidence on which he was convicted is still too great. But the phone call is a start, and Nick tells Veronica that they need to catch the next flight to Washington, D.C.. They’ve got to find that telephone.
Bellick has lost his cocky grin as the inmates crawl all over the guard booth’s protective wire barrier. As the mesh begins to shake loose in one corner, Bellick instructs his men to relocate to his office, much to T-Bag’s glee.
Moving through the catwalks, Sucre and Michael can hear the chaos erupting above them in the cell block. They continue.
Watching from the security monitors on his desk, Bellick seethes as the inmates finally get through the window and storm the guard booth. Bellick removes a case from his desk drawer and loads a 9mm handgun that was inside. They watch as the inmates work the cell door controls to free the rest of general population. T-Bag’s foot steps on a set of keys. Bellick whirls around and Mack sheepishly admits that he lost them in the commotion. T-Bag smiles as he waves the keys at the camera. Bellick radios the other guards, "This is Bellick. Our wing has been breached. I want A-Wing evacuated and shut down. All access to B-Wing cut off now."
Sara continues her rounds in the Sick Bay of B-Wing. The inmates are subdued until C.O. Rizzo receives news of the uprising in gen pop over his walkie-talkie. Sara looks concerned as the inmates around her start getting excited.
Sucre and Michael reach the wall that Michael had prepped earlier. Michael explains its significance. "Somewhere on the other side of this wall is the main drainage pipe to the prison’s old sewer system. If we can get through this wall, we can get into the pipe. If we can get into the pipe, we can get into the infirmary. And if we can get to the infirmary, then we can get out of here."
C.O. Bob interrupts Lincoln, Veronica and Nick’s meeting. He informs them that there’s a disturbance in A-Wing. All visitors must leave immediately. Veronica resists at first, but Bob assures her that it’s for her own safety. Lincoln urges Veronica to go to Washington D.C. with Nick. Following up on that call is all they have to work with.
C.O. Bob escorts Lincoln back to his cell. Lincoln, concerned for Michael’s safety, asks what’s really going on in A-Wing. Bob is reluctant to say more, but he’s a good guy and he and Lincoln have a rapport. Bob assures him that no one is going anywhere; the cell block is locked down. Bob barely finishes his sentence before T-Bag runs into the hallway followed by a group of his thugs. T-Bag fixes a predatory stare on Bob who freezes with fear. "A rookie C.O.. And it isn’t even Christmas." Lincoln assumes a protective stance. Knowing that the only way to save Bob is to fight, Lincoln takes Bob’s keys and unlocks his own handcuffs. "Get out of here T-Bag," Lincoln warns, but T-Bag is adamant about getting his hands on Bob. T-Bag offers Lincoln a bribe to hand Bob over, but Lincoln refuses. As additional thugs circle around T-Bag, he menacingly tells Lincoln, "You’ve got a lot to learn about the art of bargaining position. Lesson one: Yours just changed."
Using his carefully measured markings as a guide, Michael plugs in a work lamp and hangs it from the tripod he set up earlier. Sucre wants to know the exact location of the pipe. Michael tells him, "We’ve got someone to show us where it is." Then he takes the tracing of the devil tattoo, places it before the lamp and the image projects onto the wall.
As Sara walks into her office within sick bay, C.O. Rizzo radios and asks if A-Wing needs back up. His offer denied, he turns around and a massive inmate, Stroker, grabs him by the throat. Sara, medical tray in hand, walks out of her office and sees Rizzo on the ground. Before she can react, Stroker grabs her around the neck and chokes her. She grabs a syringe from her tray and stabs him in the arm. Stroker lets go just long enough for Sara to break free and lock herself in her office. Sara looks out. All her patients close in around the glass-lined office. The inmates are now surrounding the office, threatening to break in. Sara tries to telephone for help, but another inmate, Pop Pop, has pulled the wire from the wall.
T-Bag slowly walks closer towards Lincoln. "You ever see on of those safari shows where a bunch of cheetahs just jump all up on an antelope? Guess which one you are?" Lincoln strikes first, head butting one of the goons. A few thugs grab Bob and pin him against a wall, while the rest struggle to take down Lincoln. But Lincoln will not go down easily. He dispatches thug after thug before T-Bag sneaks behind him and strikes Lincoln on the back of the head with a metal bar, knocking him unconscious.
Sucre studies the projected image of the devil, increasingly skeptical of Michael’s plan. The devil may have a lot of power, but unless he has a sledgehammer, Sucre doubts he can help them get through the wall. Michael answers by passing him the egg beater, now fashioned into a crude drill. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Sucre asks.
The sick bay inmates have handcuffed a bloody Rizzo to a pipe while they run wild through the room. Another guard radios Rizzo for a status check, but Stroker points a shard of glass at Rizzo’s throat, forcing him to give an all-clear status. Sara remains locked in her office, terror mounting on her face.
Sucre examines the egg beater and doesn’t understand how, exactly, they’re supposed to get through a six-inch concrete wall by making a series of small holes. Michael explains, " We go through the tip of each horn. The eyes. End of the nose. Bottom of the fangs. Ends of the braids. It makes a kind of X," and when that’s done, they will have weakened the structural integrity of the wall enough to hammer their way through.
The prison guards are gearing up for the riot. They grab helmets, body armor, and heavy firepower. Bellick marches across the yard with Warden Pope. Bellick tells Pope he wants to attack the inmates head on and regain footing inside the cell blocks, but Pope disagrees. "Oh yeah, so we can end the riot today and start the funerals tomorrow?" Mack rushes over to Pope, cell phone in hand. The governor has called to find out if his daughter is safe. Pope assures Governor Tancredi, " It’s impossible for anyone from A-Wing to get to Sick Bay. And the guard on duty has assured us everything is fine. We have everything under control, Governor."
Everything is not under control. Sara flinches as the inmates chip away at the glass around her office. One inmate slams an IV stand against the reinforced glass, taunting her as it slowly cracks.
Michael completes drilling the first hole and tries to hand the drill off to Sucre for the next shift. Sucre won’t take part. He believes that drilling holes in the face of the devil is bad luck. Michael reminds him that he believes in God and God will be his protector. Sucre reluctantly takes the egg beater and begins to drill.
T-Bag returns to gen pop, dragging the beaten and bloodied C.O. Bob behind him. T-Bag assures a cheering audience of inmates that "as soon as Bob and I are finished getting acquainted, everyone else will get their turn." Bob breaks free and tries to crawl away, but T-Bag catches him easily. With his last ounce of strength, Bob kicks T-Bag. Bob’s futile attempt to fight only agitates T-Bag further. He sits on Bob’s stomach and beats him senseless.
Sucre questions how Michael knows where the drainage pipe is behind the wall. Michael tells him that he hid the coordinates for the projection in his tattoo using simple math. If he’s wrong, Sucre will drill into one of several gas pipes behind the wall, killing them instantly. Sucre turns around. "But you’re good at math, right?"
T-Bag tosses Bob into Michael’s cell. Bob falls to the ground. When he tries to regain his footing, T-Bag kicks him forward and Bob slams against the loose toilet fixture and pulls it down with him.
The noise of Bob hitting the toilet echoes through the inner chamber of the prison. Sucre and Michael share a look.
T-Bag slowly inspects the hole in the wall. "They’re breakin’ out," he whispers. He turns to alert the rioting inmates, but before he can, Abruzzi grabs him and puts a finger to his mouth.
The inmates in Sick Bay are determined to break through the glass wall to Sara. She frantically searches the office for a weapon to defend herself with. Pop Pop manages to finally get his arm through the glass. As he struggles to reach the door lock, Sara sticks him with a syringe filled with a sedative which knocks Pop Pop to the floor. Another inmate immediately continues to pound the glass with a fire extinguisher. Sara grabs a hole-punch and smashes the glass of a nearby cabinet.
Pope orders the water shut off inside the prison. When Bellick tells Pope that he’ll call maintenance, Pope redirects the order. "Mack, you take care of it."
As he climbs back through the hole to his cell, Michael pauses at an unexpected sight. Bob is restrained on Michael’s bunk, dazed and beaten, but conscious. Abruzzi and T-Bag stand nearby. "We have a problem," Abruzzi announces. "Bob here has seen the hole and he needs to go away," T-Bag chimes in. None of this is in Michael’s plan. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts, then announces, firstly, no one is going to kill Bob; he is their only leverage. This decision infuriates T-Bag. "See, Bob here knows about our secret, he knows about OUR escape. So it’s all of our concern now, isn’t it?"
In the stairwell where T-Bag left him, Lincoln lies face down in a pool of blood, unconscious. Westmoreland comes upon Lincoln and slowly rolls him over to check if he’s all right. Lincoln awakens and Westmoreland informs him of Bob’s fate, but Lincoln wants to know where Michael is. Westmoreland tells him that he hasn’t seen him since the riot started. Another inmate, Turk, overhears their conversation as he walks in. "You lookin’ for Scofield? Come on." Lincoln, still disoriented, follows Turk down a flight of steps.
Abruzzi grabs T-Bag and shoves him against the railing on the tier outside of Michael’s cell. "You’re in as much trouble as he is," Abruzzi warns. T-Bag tells Michael and Abruzzi that even if they try and kill him, he’ll scream about the hole. "So you see friends, either I’m through that hole with you, or I’m gonna sing like Johnny Cash."
Determined to defend herself, Sara takes off her lab coat and wraps it around the biggest piece of glass she can find. She’s huddled in a corner, prepared for the worst.
Michael walks back down to the floor, and one inmate calls out that the prisoners in Sick Bay are about to get to Sara. Michael rushes to the monitor in time to see Sara crouching behind a metal desk clutching her homemade weapon. Michael rushes back to his cell.
" Sucre, I need you to finish what we started," Michael says as he climbs into the hole. He’s going into B-Wing through the walls to help Sara. "And no one touches the C.O.," Michael warns as he vanishes inside.
Lincoln continues following Turk, who insists he knows a shortcut. As they enter a dark room, Turk’s green string bracelet is visible.
Michael climbs through the catwalks again and rushes up to the roof. He can see Sara beating on the sealed window of her medical office. Her eyes are frantic as the inmates are about to break through...
...to be continued.
[Edit]
Television News
